Abstract
Communication technologies shape how political activist networks are produced and maintain themselves. In Cuba, despite ideologically and physically oppressive practices by the state, a severe lack of Internet access, and extensive government surveillance, a small network of bloggers and cyberactivists has achieved international visibility and recognition for its critiques of the Cuban government. This qualitative study examines the blogger collective known as Voces Cubanas in Havana, Cuba in 2012, advancing a new approach to the study of transnational activism and the role of technology in the construction of political narrative. Voces Cubanas is analyzed as a network of connections between human and non-human actors that produces and sustains powerful political alliances. Voces Cubanas and its allies work collectively to co-produce contentious political discourses, confronting the dominant ideologies and knowledges produced by the Cuban state. Transnational alliances, the act of translation, and a host of unexpected and improvised technologies play central roles in the production of these narratives, indicating new breed of cyborg sociopolitical action reliant upon fluid and flexible networks and the act of writing.
Highlights
Once the coveted jewel of the Spanish Empire and an early adopter of computerized networking technologies in Latin America, Cuba is the least connected nation in the Western hemisphere (Biddle, 2013; Press, 2011)
In analyzing Voces Cubanas as an activist network, this study contributes to contemporary conversations concerning the roles new technologies play in affecting social and political change
Leveraging a distributed, transnational, heterogeneous and fluid network of technologies and allies, Voces Cubanas has succeeded in developing alternative discursive spaces and subversive narratives that deconstruct the binary logic of the Cuban state
Summary
Once the coveted jewel of the Spanish Empire and an early adopter of computerized networking technologies in Latin America, Cuba is the least connected nation in the Western hemisphere (Biddle, 2013; Press, 2011). While the majority of Cubans continue to live without consistent access to the Internet, since 2007 a dedicated network of bloggers and cyberactivists has achieved international visibility and notoriety for their criticisms of the Cuban government. This ethnographic study focuses on the blogger collective known as Voces Cubanas, examining the networks of human and non-human actors that allow it to survive and thrive despite overwhelming ideological and physical repression. Leveraging a distributed, transnational, heterogeneous and fluid network of technologies and allies, Voces Cubanas has succeeded in developing alternative discursive spaces and subversive narratives that deconstruct the binary logic of the Cuban state.
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